again of a yearning desire to return home “Now, lost and abandoned, I think of my old home”. These quotes depict how Lady Wen-chi longed for her home, and how she felt broken by the ordeal. Eventually Lady Wen-chi settled into her forced situation and falling in love with her abductor. Her lengthy stint with the nomads came to an end when she was finally ransomed back to China. Lady Wen-chiwas then faced with the harrowing decision; to stay with the husband and kids she loved, and stay in the land and terrain she isn’t entirely accustomed to, or to return home to all of the amenities and prosperity of her native land. The paintings and poems are from a handscroll, obtained in 1973 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lady Wen-chi was an innovator …show more content…
Being from a family with power, she was lucky that she didn’t have to directly experience the struggles of others within the declining dynasty. However her mother and father had attempted to prepare her for possible times of anguish. Tempers were continuously flaring within and outside of the empire. Eventually the flaring tempers came to a head. The outsiders of the empire forced their way in, resulting in complete mayhem. Conflict at this point was inevitable. The nomads were well armed, and prepared for battle. The denizens of the ancient empire feared days like this, but were not ready for such an attack. They were quickly overwhelmed by the Hsuing-nu. The Hsiung-nu were a ruthless bunch, showing no mercy to their opposition. Nobody within the barbarians’ range was truly safe. Arrows hit targets, and blood was shed. When the dust began to settle Lady Wen-chi found herself on the wrong side of a sword. The horrors she had been warned of were becoming all too real. She had no way to escape the clutches of Hsuing-nu. Her unfortunate fate had been sealed, being whisked off into the distance en route to an unknown land. This first poem gives great insight to the atrocities that one may have experienced during the Han dynasty. Alongside the poem, the paintings bring further …show more content…
“The Han house is declining, the barbarians of the four directions have become unfriendly” Fear from invasion was a constant threat. At the same time, it was common for people of the Han dynasty to believe themselves to be superior to their neighboring nomads, as well as others. However this was for good reason. The Han dynasty had things that were unparalleled during this time such as their strong government, landmass, population, religious ideals, and military strength. The Metropolitan Museum’s website states that Chang’an was “a monumental urban center laid out on a north-south axis with palaces, residential wards, and two bustling market areas—(Chang’an) was one of the two largest cities in the ancient world” Many of these things are still present today. China still covers mostly the same area as the Han, China is a populous country with large advanced cities, and shifts from agriculture.. There is an underlying message behind this poem, which speaks to our “American Culture”. In America people are often quite sheltered from the outside world, and we often are naïve in believing that we are untouchable from outsiders. “At gauze windows, looking into mirrors, I had not experienced the world; I thought that beaded curtains could shelter me.” This is a remarkable quote, in our society there are some occurrences that most of the American people are unaware of. For example war,
The persona in the poem reacts to the power the wall has and realizes that he must face his past and everything related to it, especially Vietnam.
There are little to no direct accounts of how individuals’ lives were a couple thousand years ago in Ancient China. With a wealth of information on the rise, decline, and fall of empires, Michael Loewe, a sinologist who specializes in oriental studies and theology, writes an imaginary story about a hero named Bing set around 70 BCE. Bing: From Farmer’s Son to Magistrate in Han China is Loewe’s fictional portrait of life during the Han Empire. It is by no means a comprehensive historical account of Han times, in fact, it was written with those readers who are not familiar with Chinese in mind, however through the life of Bing we can gage how the lives of laborers, those involved in military service, merchants, and government officials might
The bitter cold bit against the starved girl’s skeletal body. She was tired. Her parents discussed ways to get to good lands. They told her the only way to have a better life was to sell her into slavery. The girl, only ten years old was silent. She dreamed of fine clothing and good food. The girl went to the House of Hwang. She was too ugly to be in sight; she was kept in the scullery. All dreams of any kind were lashed out of her young mind. Mistreated, beaten, and underestimated, young O-lan learned to work hard and became resigned to her fate. One day, the Old Mistress summoned her and told her that she was to be married to a poor farmer. The other slaves scoffed, but O-lan was grateful for a chance to be free - they married. O-lan vowed to return to the great house one day in fine clothing with a son. Her resolve was strong; no one could say otherwise. Her years of abuse as a slave had made O-lan wise, stoic, and bitter; whether the events of her life strengthened or weakened her is the question.
Chapter 1: The Wan-Li Emperor, begins by explaining the major premise of the work: The concept of looking at a single year in the history of the leadership of China and evaluating the implications for understanding other aspects of history, including the decline of the Ming Dynasty. In this initial chapter, Huang provides an anecdotal history of some of the events that occurred, and includes within it a discussion of the set up of the leadership, the repercussions that occurred in the event of certain actions, including the prospects of an audience with the emperor. Huang reviews these issues as he considers that actions taken by the Wan-li emperor, who was only twenty-four in 1587 and who had been a veteran of ceremonial proceedings, and considers his history as an element of understanding the progression of leadership.
Gordon’s voice is sad and stressful but all of this just what she thinks about the history, but Chinese Poetry is different, they has a lot of diversity voice in there, some sad, some depressed, some hopeless, but there are some of them is hopeful and want to have a better life in America. In my opinion, I like the way people who look into the history to learn and improve themselves than just getting angry and sad with something happened long time ago. Reading Chinese Poetry, I can feel the sadness of them Chinese and Vietnamese have similar culture and I could understand why they were so anxious and stressful. China is far away from the America, the Chinese Immigrants have to go really far to get into American with hopefully that they could have a better life for them. In fact, the Chinese immigrants did not be treat as they respected.
Chapter one, The Observers, in the Death of Woman Wang demonstrates the accuracy of the local historian; Feng K'o-ts'an, who compiled The Local History of T'an-ch'eng in 1673. The descriptive context of the Local History helps the reader to understand and literally penetrate into people's lives. The use of records of the earthquake of 1668, the White Lotus rising of 1622 and rebels rising vividly described by Feng the extent of suffering the people of T'an-ch'eng went through. Jonathan Spence stresses on how miserable the two-quarter of the seventeen-century were to the diminishing population of the county. The earthquake claimed the lives of nine thousand people, many others died in the White lotus rising, hunger, sickness and banditry. P'u Sung-ling's stories convey that after the loss of the wheat crops there were cases of cannibalism. On top of all of this came the slaughtering of the entire family lines by the bandits. The incredible records of women like Yao and Sun in the Local History present the reader the magnitude of savagery the bandits possessed. All of these factors led to the rise of suicides. The clarity of events Spence given to the reader is overwhelming.
As the women narrate the harm caused by men, they lose track of the beings that they once were and become different people in order to cause a reaction in others. These women are hurt in ways that cause them to change their way of living. The Lady in Blue becomes afraid of what others will think of her because a man impregnated her: “i cdnt have people [/] lookin at me [/] pregnant [/] I cdnt have my friends see this” (Shange, Abortion Cycle # 1 Lines 14- 16). Instead of worrying about the life of her child, she worries about how her...
Hung Liu is successful in creating a juxtaposing image that tells a story about the many aspects of her Chinese origins. According to the painting, not all life in China is surrounded by beauty and elegance, like many believe it to be based on the traditional historical customs. Liu makes her point using a brilliant yet subtle progression, moving from the ideal to reality. Making use of the various principles and elements of art in her work creates a careful visual composition that benefit and support the painting’s achievements as a whole. This oil painting, being approximately 13 years old now, will hold a special place in Chinese history for the rest of its existence. The ideas Hung Liu portrays in Interregnum may help reform a social movement in the country by making her viewers socially aware of the cruel conditions the Chinese are facing under Communist rule, and this is all made possible through the assimilation of the principles and
No other woman in the Early Han held the same amount of influence as Empress Lü throughout her various titles as Empress, Empress Dowager, and then Grand Empress Dowager. Stories recounting her manipulative nature paint a picture of a scheming empress using her imperial power to bestow favors and political positions to her own clan. This essay argues that Empress Lü used the lack of precedence for her position as Empress Dowager to manipulate court officials into granting power to her clan, which caused political unrest late in her life and resulted in the destruction of the Lü clan. To support this claim, this essay will discuss the exceptional nature of Empress Lü's power and the extent of her ability to manipulate the court, and then this paper will provide evidence of a Lü clan extermination after the death of the empress that held power for fifteen years after her husband died – in a nation with no precedence for this kind of rule.
During the Han Dynasty, Poetry, literature, and philosophy flourished. One text written during that time was Lessons for Women by Ban Zhao, which describes appropriate behavior women should follow.
An analysis of Bao Chu’s nurturing positive anima, Huiang Niang , underlines his maturation into an honorable warrior. Indeed, after Bao Chu volunteers to complete his father’s mission, he tells his mother that “no matter how long I am away, do not let your heart grieve for me” (22). Bao Chu remains in touch with his feminine side by appealing to his mother’s emotions and by telling her to stay strong, instead of adhering to a strict warrior persona. Moreover, after the demons attempt to con Hui Niang into thinking Bao had died so that “her tears would weaken Bao Chu”, she thinks of her sons parting words instead choosing to remain hopeful (23). Thus, Hui Niang’s faithful nature is responsible for her son’s inevitable success. Finally, when
He introduces the Chinese as infidels who “worship idols and burn their dead like the Indians do.” He draws attention to the fact that there is segregation between the Muslims and Chinese, explaining that the Muslims live in quarters of the cities that are separate from the rest of it, where there are “mosques for their Sunday prayers and other assemblies.” However, he also praises the Chinese—the merchants especially—who, though they “live in an infidel country…are delighted when a Muslim arrives among them. They say, ‘He has come from the land of Islam’, and give him the legal alms due on his property so that he becomes as rich as one of them.” He also spends several pages praising the beauty of Chinese architecture and commending the ingenuity of its people; however, he ultimately states that, “China, for all its magnificence, did not please me. I was deeply depressed by the prevalence of infidelity and when I left my lodging I saw many offensive things which distressed me so much that I stayed at home and went out only when it was
In his poem, “Notes from the City of the Sun”, Bei Dao utilizes obscure imagery consistent with the Misty Poets and veiled political references to illustrate the struggles in Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. The poem is sectioned into fourteen short stanzas containing imagery that are symbolic of the cultural hegemony in China under the rule of Mao Zedong. Bei Dao, born Zhao Zhen-kai, is an anti-revolutionary poet and one of the founders of a group known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets wrote poems that protested the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong. Therefore, a lot of Bei Dao’s poems speak out against the Cultural Revolution and the restrictions that it placed on any form of art. Bei Dao’s poetry is categorized as “misty” because of the ambiguity in its references to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. An obscure imagery that occurs twice in “Notes” is the sun imagery. Another imagery that depicts the injustice of the Cultural Revolution is the description of freedom as scraps of paper. In the poem, Bei Dao also equates faith to sheep falling into a ditch; this is a depiction blind faith during the Cultural Revolution. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Bei Dao’s use of the Misty Poet’s ambiguous imagery and implicit political context in the poem “Notes from the City of the Sun” to illustrate the cultural hegemony in China under Mao.
Wang Lung’s family is the source of his love, support, and drive to accomplish his dreams. Wang Lung’s opulence is reached with the help and support of Olan. Olan is hardworking and efficient, obedient to her husband’s every command, and never squanders money, for she “through all these years had followed him faithfully as a dog, and . . . when he was poor and labored in the fields himself she left her bed even after a child was born and came to help him in the harvest fields” (Buck 181). And, to help Wang Lung accumulate up wealth, she willingly gives up her precious bag of jewels to buy land with, mends and makes the family’s clothes instead of buying them, and repairs their home with her own hands and resources rather than hiring other people to do it. Additionally, Olan bears Wang Lung sons to continue his bloodline, never complains about having too much work, and never requests for a servant. Olan is an ideal and perfect wife, and without her resourcefulness and multitude of skills, Wang Lung is never able to end up with an expanding farming empire. The Wang family also respects their elders, and they treat them as superiors, for “‘in the Sacred Edicts it is commanded that a man is never to correct an elder’” (Buck 66). When the Wang family is starving, Wang Lung gives all the food they have to spare to his father so that “none could say in the hour of death he had forgotten his father” (Buck 82). And, even though Wang Lung despises his lethargic uncle, he still treats them courteously and allows his family to live in his house, because he knows it’s a “shame to a man when he has enough to spare to drive his own father’s brother and son from the house” (Buck 203). Furthermore, Wang Lung is a decent father, and exceptionally affectionate towards his innocent oldest daughter with the special, heartwarming smile. Even though
The Warring States is the subject and title of Griffith’s third chapter, which gives an enlightening look at the life and times in China after the defeat of the rule of Chin at Ching Yang in 453. (p. 20) The country was divided into eight individual warring sects (with the exception of Yen...